Productivity Cosplay

Yesterday, I joked about my love/hate relationship with meetings. Like a Facebook status - it's complicated. And to be clear - I do believe meetings can be valuable. But let’s be honest - most of them are time-sucking (soul-sucking) exercises in productivity cosplay. So today, instead of venting, I want to share practical ways to make meetings more effective.

1. Should the meeting exist? "We are meeting to review the weekly metrics." Really? Isn't there a dashboard or file that you can review?

2. Purpose - my all-time favorite - meetings to just meet drives me crazy. Who has time for that? Identify the purpose and if there isn't one then there's no reason to meet.

3. Participation - who really needs to be there? I've seen this one a lot - entire departments pulled together for a meeting in which only two people participate.

4. What's the expected outcome? I was looking at a recent meeting that had 20 bullet points as an agenda. Reality is that the entire meeting could have been handled in emails and chat messages.

5. Preparation - having a clear agenda/expected outcome ahead of time allows those participating to prepare. Nothing worse than sitting in a meeting and there's a two minute pause while someone is searching for information.

6. Hijacking and rabbit holes - we've all been in meetings where the meeting agenda is hijacked for topics that were not part of the agenda. Or we deep dive into a topic that is not relevant. Avoid at all costs.

7. Decisions - endless discussion which leads to a regroup or another meeting is the enemy. Make decisions.

8. Action items and timelines - Once a decision is made decide on the actions items, timelines, and ownership.

9. Recap - recap the discussion, action items, timelines, and ownership.

10. Celebrate - congrats you survived another meeting.

Meetings don't have to be the villain. If they must exist, they need to earn their place on the calendar.